After 19-year-old, depressed Nikolas Cruz murdered 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, President Donald Trump offered "prayers and condolences." But with 30 mass shootings just this year as of Feb. 14, according to the Gun Violence Archive, we need more than j...

“I met a homeless person at my one and only time at the local food pantry and it made me realize that my life is great and theirs isn’t.”
Sound familiar?
It must to college admissions officers.
With the rise of mandatory community service hours in American high schools, community service...

Halloween was my favorite holiday. Since I can remember, Halloween was my favorite day. I would spend hours figuring out which costume to wear each year. Was I going to be one of the many Disney princesses or opt for a scarier look like Ghostface from Scream, or Jason Voorhees from Friday The 13th?
The...

As I sat in an uncomfortable folding chair with my lap overwhelmed with overdue AP Statistics homework in the middle of downtown’s Curtis Hixon Park, I questioned why I went to see the Florida Orchestra perform a free concert. Apparently everyone in Tampa decided to attend. There were too many people,...

UPDATE: Last week, I would've told you that there's no such thing as "second chances," let alone any other chance after that. Not too long ago, I opened up about my battle with endometriosis and my journey through the years as I grew sicker.
Between now and then, things have changed. Two weeks ag...

Language creates the biggest bond between people. It helps us express our feelings, thoughts and ideas in a way that is easily lost through nonverbal communication. Having the ability to speak a language provides us with the opportunity to form lasting relationships with people. Learning new languages...

For a long time, my grandmother absolutely terrified me.
It’s not like she’s a particularly terrifying woman; she’s this little old lady living in a retirement home in Jersey City who will feed you until you burst and not let you leave her house without a gift of some sort, but dread piled in...

For those of you who dread reading but are interested in the title, I’ll summarize what this is all about in four simple words: the world is ending.
Got it? Great. If you want to keep reading, I congratulate you for your common sense. To everyone else: bye; have fun with your ignorance of our impending...

It’s the start of a brand new year and that means it’s also the start of new opportunities. But just because it’s a new year, doesn’t mean we aren’t hearing anything from 2016.
In this past year, many interesting and weird things trended on Twitter. People occasionally even threw “Twitter...

It was almost midnight when the ambulance pulled up in front of the glass double doors at a department store. I juggled a stack of baby clothes in my hands, watching in curiosity as they rushed a stretcher to the back of the store.
I knew where they were headed: the electronics section; the same location...